


Cat Mask

by ghostieZone



Category: Video Blogging RPF, jacksepticeye
Genre: Backstory, Hurt/Comfort, Jackieboy Man - Freeform, Jacksepticeye egos, Marvin the Magnificent - Freeform, headcanon stuff, jacksepticeye - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-08
Updated: 2018-07-08
Packaged: 2019-06-07 01:20:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,468
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15207692
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ghostieZone/pseuds/ghostieZone
Summary: Marvin- overdramatic, mysterious, but lovable all the same. He's Jackie's closest friend; ever since he became Jackie's crime-fighting partner, they share everything with each other. The only thing Jackie can't figure out is why Marvin never takes his mask off around him, even when he sleeps. What could he possibly be hiding?





	1. Scars

**Author's Note:**

> I drew a comic for this and posted it on my tumblr (@ghostiezone, heres the link to the comic! https://ghostiezone.tumblr.com/post/173242980884/u-know-how-i-always-say-im-weak-for-origin) but realized that I couldn't get as many details as I wanted into a short little series of pictures, so I decided to write instead!
> 
> This is also the first story I'm posting to AO3, most of my stuff is on tumblr, so forgive me if any formatting seems off!

It was getting late, and after they had finished watching a movie, Marvin had curled up on the couch and fell asleep, feet resting over one of Jackie’s legs. Since his head was resting against the arm of the couch, the mask on his face was sitting at a strange angle. It looked uncomfortable from Jackie’s point of view, but he knew that Marvin was sensitive about anyone else touching his mask, much less taking it off. Come to think of it, Jackie had never even seen Marvin without his mask on. So he decided to just let it be. 

Jackie, who was still wide awake and sitting cross legged, didn’t want to wake his friend and was more than happy to just sit back and play a few games on his phone. 

This lasted for quite some time before Marvin started to tense like he was having a bad dream; his face scrunched up under his mask and he pulled his arms and legs tighter around himself. He mumbled something in his sleep, catching Jackie off guard since it was loud enough to sound like Marvin was awake. 

Pulling his attention away from his phone, the hero turned his head towards his friend, “Huh? Did you say someth-”

Jackie shut his mouth almost immediately when he saw Marvin’s hand reach up towards his face to sleepily scratch at the skin beneath his mask. The action was clumsy, and he ended up pushing his mask up onto his forehead, revealing the rest of his face. 

Jackie gasped aloud, horrified. Marvin looked like he had walked through hell and somehow made it out alive. From his nose up to the top of his head, Marvin’s skin was mottled with poorly-healed pink and red scars that looked like they may have come from a fire. There were spots of his otherwise thick blue-green hair that were completely burned away. While most of the worst burns had managed to be hidden by his hair growing back, there was one very distinct patch of scarred skin close to the right side of his forehead where his hair had refused to regrow, leaving a gaping bald spot- said spot had previously been hidden by one of the ears of his mask.

He didn’t seem to be in any pain, face relaxed and sleeping peacefully now, and by the way the scars had healed over it seemed like this was the result of some long-past event. Even so, Jackie couldn’t help the jolt of fear that made its way up his spine. 

“M-Marvin! Marvin wake up, man! What happened to you?” Jackie couldn’t help himself from worrying, and reached out a hand to gently shake his friend’s shoulder in an attempt to wake him up. “What happened to your face, are you okay??” he asked, not bothering to hide the sheer level of concern in his voice. 

His thoughts raced: what if this had gone untreated? What if it was infected? Should he go wake the Doctor- what if….?

Marvin finally started to stir and rubbed at his eyes sleepily, interrupting Jackie’s panicked thoughts. As his fingers brushed a little too harshly against one of the scars, a grimace formed on his face and seemed to wake him up a bit more. 

“Ughhhh… Jackie? what the fuck are you yellin’ about I’m tryin’ to sle-” he mumbled lazily, but suddenly his voice broke off into an inaudible whisper as he put a hand up to rub at his face and the realization dawned that he was, in fact, not wearing a mask. 

His face completely dropped, a look of mixed fear and guilt building in his eyes. His breath hitched, “u-hh… oh… fuck” 

He suddenly pushed himself into a sitting position and turned his back to Jackie, quickly pulling his mask back down to cover his eyes. 

Jackie, shocked by his reaction, reached out a hand and opened his mouth, though he wasn’t quite sure what he wanted to say. “….Marv? Are you alright?” 

Marvin visibly flinched, keeping a hand to his mask. “Happened a long time ago. It’s nothing.” he muttered, voice quiet, but after hearing the concern in his friend’s voice he sighed. “I’m fine.” 

Jackie opened his mouth to reply, but thought better of it and shut it again, dropping his hand back down. After a minute or two of painful silence, he opened his mouth again, “A-are you sure? That looks pretty bad… I think Schneeps is still awake, I could go get him if you-” 

“Stop it Jackie, I said I’m FINE.” Marvin snapped, cutting him off with a harsh voice. “Henrik already knows, and he would agree with me. it’s not a big deal.” He clenched his fists and moved to stand, but Jackie grabbed his wrist. 

“Marvin. Listen to me. I won’t push you. You don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to, but-” He let go of Marvin’s arm, speaking softly. “You know you can trust me, right?” 

After a tense moment, Marvin sat back down with a heavy sigh and put his face in his hands. “You were there.” he said simply, voice so quiet that Jackie almost missed what he said entirely. 

“What?” 

“You were there that night. At the theatre, I… I was so scared, I thought I was gonna get arrested so I just- I ran and hid… oh god, Jackie it was all my fault I-” he broke off into a sob, burying his hands in his hair. “People died that night, I almost died that night, all because of some STUPID magic show!” 

Jackie was completely taken aback by this sudden outburst, but seeing that Marvin was crying, he moved closer and put his arm around his shoulders. He took a deep breath before replying, not completely sure of what he wanted to say. 

“I remember that… you were the one still in the building, weren’t you?” 

Marvin pulled his hands away from his face and looked up at Jackie with glowing purple eyes. “I was afraid… I didn’t want- I didn’t mean to, I just g-got too cocky and I lost control of my magic and-” He turned his head to stare at the floor, shrinking away from Jackie’s arm. “I didn’t want to tell you, I thought… I was….” he stopped himself, taking a shuddering breath to control his crying a little more. “I’m the bad guy, Jackie. I set the fire… I thought you would have hated me if I told you.” 

There was a long pause. Marvin immediately started to regret opening his mouth, and wouldn’t move his eyes off the floor to look up at Jackie. This was it- Jackie would stand up and leave and never speak to him again. After all, he knew Marvin was a villain now, and heroes can’t be friends with villains. 

Jackie, however, didn’t do any of that. He very gently took Marvin’s mask in his hands and lifted it slowly off of his face, trying not to visibly grimace when he could see the burn scars again. He set the mask on the couch between them and took off his own blue eyemask, setting that down too. 

“Marvin, look at me.” 

Marvin flinched at feeling the mask being lifted off his face, instinctively turning his head away to hide the worst of the scars, but at the sound of Jackie’s voice he slowly turned back, finally looking up at Jackie’s face. 

“Look. Right now, I’m not a hero. You’re not a magician. See? We’re just two normal guys, sittin’ on a couch, being friends.” He offered a small smile, folding his legs up on the couch again. His smile dropped a little, and he put a hand on Marvin’s shoulder. “I don’t hate you Marvin, I could never hate you! What happened was an accident, it wasn’t your fault. You weren’t being malicious or evil or whatever; you’re not a bad guy. And, hey! Even if you were,” the smile returned, and Jackie seemed to be back to his usual goofy manner, “look at me now! I’m not wearin’ a mask so I’m off-duty. I can be friends with any super villain I wanna be friends with.” 

He pushed Marvin’s shoulder playfully, which earned a small laugh- better than nothing. 

Marvin sniffed, wiping the last of the tears from his eyes with the back of his hand. There was a small smile on his face. “Thanks Jackie, I… I’m sorry, I should have trusted you more, I should have told you earlier.”

Jackie’s response was to pull Marvin into a hug, “hey it’s okay, I understand. Just don’t go setting anymore big fires and I think we’ll be fine.” 

He laughed as Marvin punched his shoulder, pushing him back. 

“Not funny!!” Marvin gasped dramatically, but there was a smile on his face. He picked up his mask from the couch and held it in his hands, staring at it for a few seconds. He placed it on his head, but didn’t yet pull it down to cover his face. 

He took a deep breath, stood up, and stretched his arms over his head with a yawn. “Yeah, yeah, I’ll try not to burn the house down, I promise,” he turned to grin at Jackie, “but! for now it’s late and I’m tired, so goodnight.” 

As he walked to his room, Jackie sighed. He was still a little worried about Marvin, but glad he seemed to be okay for now at least. He rested his head against the back of the couch, closing his eyes. 

Yeah, he remembered that night really well.


	2. The Fire

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Flashback to the night of the "accident"- this time from Jackie's POV

Jackieboy Man was perched on a rooftop, watching the city below him. One of his legs hung off the side of the roof, and he was swinging it idly, admittedly a little bored.

Today had been a quiet day, and as much as that was a good thing- it meant there wasn’t a lot crime or disasters to deal with- it also meant he had nothing to do.

“Alright jackieboy! we’ll give it 10 more minutes and then go home for the night!” He mumbled to himself, standing up and stretching.

Just a few moments after he said that, the sound of sirens rang through the air.

“Speak of the devil- some action!” He grinned and pushed himself up, backing up a few steps before running and leaping off the edge of the roof, landing on the next one over.

Following the sound of the sirens, Jackie soon came upon a speeding firetruck. He trailed it by rooftop for a few blocks before it came to a screeching halt in front of a smoldering building. Heavy black smoke poured from the windows and door; the orange-red glow of flames could be seen inside.

Immediately springing into action, Jackie dropped down off the roof e had been standing on and ran up to the front of the burning building. A crowd of people were standing out front, some were coughing and being led towards the paramedics while others were staring back at the burning building with a mixture of awe and terror.

“Is there anyone left inside the building?” Jackie asked one person standing close to the building. They jumped a bit at the sound of his unexpected voice, shell-shocked for a moment from turning to see the familiar face of the city’s resident superhero.

“I- I don’t know, we kind of ran out in a panic as soon as we heard the alarms but…” The man paused for a second. He was wearing a uniform, so he most likely worked in the theatre and wasn’t there to see whatever show was going on. “I don’t think- uh- there was a guy performing here tonight, some kind of magic show, but I don’t see him out here. Kinda short guy, brown hair, green eyes, I think he was wearing a suit… I don’t know if he got out or not.”

Jackie nodded and hurried into the building, pushing the doors open with his shoulder. A quick look around the lobby showed the place was already falling to ruin- rafters had fallen and destroyed the floor in places, and he immediately started to choke in the smoke-filled air. Above the door to the auditorium, a smoldering sign still proudly trying to display the name of the show:

“M–vi- -he —ni–cent”

Jackie pulled the collar of his uniform up to cover the bottom half of his face. Once he stopped coughing and managed to take a steady breath, he ran at the door, pushing against it only to find that it had been blocked from the other side, most likely blocked by fallen debris.

He took half a step back and rammed into the door with his shoulder, summoning all his strength to shove the debris aside and push his way into the room. Taking as deep a breath as he could, he shouted into the room, “Hello?! Is there anyone still in here?? I’m here to help you!”

He just barely heard a panicked gasp over the crackle of the fires, and movement by the stage caught his eye. The figure of a person straightened at the sound of his voice and took off towards a door that seemed to lead deeper into the building.

“Hey, wait!! Don’t go that way- it’s dangerous!!”

Jackie covered his mouth again and ran down the aisle, trying to catch up to the shadowed figure while also dodging fires and fallen pieces of the ceiling. He got to the door and swung around the corner and saw….

Nothing.

The hall was completely deserted, no sign of movement anywhere. There wasn’t much back here anyway- a janitor closet, prop room, and dressing room all labeled with little gold stars on the doors- not many places to hide. There was, however, an exit sign above the farthest door.

Hoping beyond hope that the person he was chasing wasn’t dumb enough to hide somewhere in the building, Jackie ran full speed for the exit.

Again, nothing. No sign of life anywhere in the back alley between buildings. He took a few steps away from the burning building, coughing a few times to get the remaining smoke out of his lungs.

“Hello?!” Jackie called one last time, again with no answer. He was about to go deeper into the alley to search, but heard voices from the front calling his name. He took one last desperate look around him before running off into the night to answer the calls for help.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Little did the city’s great hero know, the person he was looking for was curled up against a wall a few buildings away, nursing fresh wounds and pulling a burnt, nearly-destroyed mask over his face in an attempt to hide his identity.


End file.
